The England under-21 striker dropping down to revitalise his career

With all of the recent fuss surrounding Sunderland needing a new striker, they already owned an extremely talented player in the form of Connor Wickham.

Wickham hit the headlines when he first broke into the senior team at Ipswich Town, bursting onto the England youth scene and terrorising defences all over the country and world.

It’s not exactly gone to plan since his high profile move to Sunderland which has seen him slip way way way down the pecking order at the club, to the point where he isn’t even considered an option by Martin O’Neill when he has no other choice.

Well he’s decided to join Sheffield Wednesday on a one month loan deal with the view to staying with the side for the rest of the season.

It’s odd because he seems to give the impression that he genuinely believes Sheffield Wednesday are the right club to help him back into the big time in terms of where he wants to be as a player.

“I feel like I've been around for a long time. I made my debut just after turning 16. The move came to the Premiership and maybe it didn't work out quite as well as I'd hoped straight away, but now I feel I'm fitter and stronger and hopefully I can kick on,” Wickham told BBC sport.

So what can he possibly get out of this loan move which will help him when he goes back to the North East?

Well he’s guaranteed games because Sheffield Wednesday are 19th in the Championship table and just two points above the bottom three places which means relegation to League One.

He gets to play under pressure because any time he is thrown into the team by Dave Jones, they are expecting, or rather hoping, that he will score the goals which will allow the side to accumulate points.

It could just be a shrewd move on the part of Sunderland boss Martin O’Neill to get Wickham a little bit of confidence because he may have seen his head starting to drop at Sunderland which is not going to help the Premier League giants.

He does deserve praise for at least trying to do something to revitalise his career, it may just not all come together in the magnanimous way that he seems to be hoping it will do.

Do you think Wickham will get back the reputation he possessed at 16-years-old?

Lewis Doe

Lewis Doe is a freelance writer and editor who seeks to bring you the biggest, smallest and most interesting stories from the football world. Lewis has previously written for some of the biggest football news and opinion sites in the world including FootballFanCast and Goal.com International. Lewis is also experienced writing in the betting industry and aims to deliver his stories with up to date factual and statistical information. He hopes to sum up stories for the site and provide an angle on the issue moving forward.Lewis is HITC Sport's La Liga correspondent.